imaging on the fly

[swoolgrove]

Hi, could anyone be so kind as to tell me which software I need to burn an image of my C: drive to cd/rw on the fly (ie while my OS is running). I have Nero 5.5. installed but this won't let me do that (nor D: drive for that matter) because of programs running.

Many thanks

Steve

[Force Flow]

Have you tried it in safe mode?

I'm not sure if the burner would work in safe mode, though.

Suggestions #2: Try closing out of all of the progs you have running in the system tray (down by the clock). Or run msconfig to disable them from loading at startup.

What O/S are you running, btw?

[ktkendall]

I know that the reliable imaging programs like Norton Ghost require you to run it from a boot floppy, and that is for a good reason. Many of those windows files are in use and will not copy, although I'm sure if you search there are imaging programs that can do what you desire..

[reboot]

Nope. Nothing I know of will image a complete drive (containing the running OS), "on-the-fly".
Ghost et al have a DOS disk for a reason.

[swoolgrove]

Many thanks people, I think you have told me what I need to know. Nero never offered me the option of booting with a DOS disk, so I shall try it with Norton ghost.

Again thanks

Steve

[glc]

Use Ghost or Drive Image to create an image of your C drive to a different drive or partition, and choose the option to split the image if it's larger than 650mb so you can burn the image to CD's after the fact.